Client Engagement Series – Lesson Four: Client-Engagement through Client-Focused Recommendations
This is the fourth post in our four-part series, Client Engagement: How to Connect and Stay Connected.
The product recommendation/presentation is supposed to be the part of the sale call that gets the client excited. We should not have to think about whether or not the client is engaged. After all, this is all about them, right?
A product offer will be significantly better when we explain how the product is going to specifically benefit this client or how our product is going to solve problems that this client currently experiences. Easy peasy, right? It should be. Here are a few tips to make sure all your product offers hit dead center into client needs, issues and hot buttons. When they do, your clients will definitely stay engaged and remain interested in buying your product.
A Client-Engaging Product Offer Relies on the Following Three Elements
Rapport: Clients stay more engaged when we have a strong rapport with them (see Post One in this topic on Being Likeable). Clients will provide more detailed and honest answers during our Discovery when they like us and are comfortable talking with us.
A Strong Discovery: If we ask great questions and learn a lot about this client, what she is like, what she dislikes, what she hopes to gain from our product, we have the foundation necessary to deliver a great product presentation. Clients will remain engaged and will closely follow our product offer when we have this thorough understanding of their world.
A Client-Focused Recommendation: This is why the client is speaking with us. They want to know what we can do for them. The most client-engaging product offers are going to have the clients world threaded all through them.
As you are highlighting specific product features, present them as real-world scenarios with the client included in the story. We call these Function Statements in our sales training. If, for example, your software will make it much easier for the client to send large files to other businesses, give an example of that feature in use – with this client sending the large file. The more you know about the types of large files this client sends, the better.
- So then next time you need to send a picture of a new floor plan that is more than 10 megs, all you do is–. Make it seem easy. Including specifics like a picture of a new floor plan makes the situation as real as possible.
For the best Client Engagement, we recommend a minimum of three tie-backs to your Discovery. Add words like, –which you said was important to you. Begin sentences with phrases like, Since you mentioned that your current computer takes «way too long to send large files, you are going to love our–. The more you can tie back, the more engaged the client will remain.
Client Engagement is achieved and maintained throughout the call so we can have an active and interested client when we arrive at the product presentation. Make sure your product recommendations really hit home by tying several of the features back to the clients real world. Make it as real as it can be using Function Statements. Your clients will not only be more engaged, many more of them will say Yes when you ask them to purchase.
